Abigail Johnston

Abigail Johnston, known to friends, readers and the metastatic breast cancer community simply as Abby, was an Orlando, Florida attorney who became one of the most visible and outspoken advocates for people living with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer (MBC) in the United States. She died on October 29, 2026, surrounded by her family, after living with the disease for nine years.

Johnston had practiced law in Florida since 2002. In 2017, while she was tandem breastfeeding her two young sons, she found a lump and was first given an early stage breast cancer diagnosis in March of that year. Within months doctors discovered the cancer had already spread, a pattern known as de novo Stage IV disease, meaning it was metastatic from the very beginning rather than progressing from an earlier stage. She later learned she carried an ATM gene mutation that had predisposed her to cancer. She was 38 years old at the time of her diagnosis.

Facing a life expectancy she described in blunt terms, Johnston closed her law practice and redirected her energy into advocacy for the metastatic breast cancer community, a group she felt was too often reduced to statistics rather than treated as whole people living full lives under a terminal diagnosis. She wrote candidly about her treatments, her fears and her family life on her blog, No Half Measures, and later produced and hosted the podcast Our MBC Life. She founded Connect IV Legal Services, a nonprofit that recruited lawyers to do pro bono legal work for Stage IV patients navigating disability, insurance and estate issues while sick. She also held leadership roles with SurvivingBreastCancer.org, where she chaired the MBC Leadership Committee, served as a research advocate with FORCE, a peer to peer advocate with Metavivor, a Hear My Voice Advocate with Living Beyond Breast Cancer, and a RISE Legacy advocate for the Young Survival Coalition. She spoke at national Conferences on Metastatic Breast Cancer in multiple years, including one scheduled for 2026.

Johnston's advocacy mattered because it pushed back against a public conversation about breast cancer that often centers on survivorship and pink ribbon optimism, while leaving little room for people who will live with the disease, and eventually die from it, for the rest of their lives. She argued for legislative change, better access to treatment, and honest conversations about dying while still living. Over nearly a decade with the disease she went through numerous lines of therapy, continuing to advocate even as her illness progressed.

Her death was announced on her own social media accounts in a statement from her family. She is remembered by colleagues in the cancer advocacy world as a fierce, clear eyed voice for patients with terminal illness, a lawyer who turned her professional skills toward helping others in the same position, and a mother who was open about trying to build a full life for her husband and two sons even under the shadow of a fatal diagnosis.